Medicare Part B law aims to protect beneficiaries
Q: I recently heard of a law, which took effect Jan. 1, that, as I understand it, will provide that physicians who treat patients who are eligible for but not covered by Medicare Part B will be prohibited from treating any other Medicare patients for a period of two years. For complicated reasons, I have deferred applying for Part B. I had been planning to continue that deferral, but this law will constrain me to apply for Part B in the next "open season" or leave my current physicians in favor of some who do not treat Medicare patients, a rather expensive alternative. Do you have any information that may help determine my best course of action?
A: It wasn't easy, but we finally tracked down the man with the answer, Robert Bath of the Health Care Financing Administration, which sets the policy and pays the bills for Medicare and Medicaid.
"In some very, very far respect, it (the new law) probably is something that someone might be affected by," Bath said. "But generally, we feel it's intended to protect the beneficiaries."
It does that by forbidding physicians from charging beneficiaries separately through separate contracts, he said. "If they do that, they will not be allowed to bill anybody for Medicare for two years."
Having said that, Bath said it's unlikely that will happen because almost every physician here accepts and deals with Medicare. He also said there's no need for concern.
"If you elected not to be part of Part B, then that (law) doesn't apply," said Bath, who has since retired. You can go wherever you want to go.
But if you are still concerned, write to the regional office of the Health Care Financing Administration at 75 Hawthorne St., Suite 401, San Francisco, CA 94105, or call 415-744-3501.
Q: There is a huge lunch wagon-type truck in a driveway on Kekaa Street in Kalama Valley which blocks the sidewalk. You have to walk on the street to get past. It's been there for a couple of months, and now there's a car in front of it. Is this allowed? Who do we complain to? A: The police. It's illegal to block the sidewalk.
William Deering, chief of the Housing Code Section for the city Building Department, checked out your complaint, although he suspected it was more a police matter.
It took a while to track down the vehicle's owner because the house is a rental, he said. Inspectors finally did talk to the truck's owner, who said he was waiting to move the vehicle to a service station, Deering said.
He was told to move the truck. When that did not happen, the complaint was given to police, Deering said. The truck has since been moved.
Eli Kawai, who describes himself as a local historian, had some interesting explanations for why streets are designated north-south (referring to the Jan. 7 column). It goes back to the old days, he said, when Nuuanu Avenue was used to bisect Oahu. Anything on the Kaimuki side was south; on the Ewa side, north (even though they are more east-west). So you have North and South King streets, North and South Beretania, etc. Extending Nuuanu all the way into Kailua (via Pali, Kailua Road), you have North and South Kalaheo, North and South Oneawa, etc., he said. Which way do we go?
He also said you can find street addresses by using Nuuanu as the starting point, with 1 beginning there, both north and south. Kapiolani Boulevard, at the Ewa end, does not start with 1, but begins with 600 and takes its cue from King Street, Kawai said. Ditto with Young Street, he said.
